Sunday, December 30, 2012

3DS Piracy!

According to a report from Tiny Cartridge, hackers are starting to delve into the 3DS, illegally. This may open up pathways for pirates to obtain and distribute games on the black market. The good news is that Nintendo has the ability to put up a good fight against pirates due to 3DS system updates and such. Let’s hope this is enough to stop piracy. Time will tell.Piracy on the Nintendo DS crippled the DS retail market, especially in Europe. We’ll never know how/if Dementium II landed in as many hands as the first game, Dementium: The Ward, due to the rampant piracy at the time. Dementium: The Ward sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide, which is a great success for an original mature-rated title on the DS. Recorded sales of Dementium II are less than half that. We’ll never truly know why that was so, but many seem to believe that piracy had a lot to do with it.If piracy gets bad on the 3DS, we will have no choice but to stop supporting the platform with new games. Some say that piracy leads to more game sales, claiming that it enables players to try before they buy. Bullshit. The percentage of people who will spend money on a game that they already got for free is surely very small – especially with so many “free” games already in the market. The line between what should/should not be free is getting very blurry.

If these hackers really want to mess with the guts of a 3DS, why not become legit developers for it and let the world enjoy their talents? Many of today’s great programmers used to be hackers back in the day. It is a great way to learn the craft. Putting ones efforts towards the creation of legit games instead of potentially crippling the market seems like a much more fulfilling path.

111 comments:

"If these hackers really want to mess with the guts of a 3DS, why not become legit developers for it and let the world enjoy their talents?"

Weel, maybe i'm failing a lot, but there are thing called devkits and royalties for publishing in certain platforms, aside from all those things like ESRB and PEGI, which are not free. So, if small developers are struggling to publish in a console or handheld to enter in the market where Angry Birds are not in, imagine a guy that has to hack the 3DS to develop something for it.

BenjRose, if you're suggesting that independent developers should resort to hacking handhelds to get in on the market and avoid royalties, you're out of your mind. Tengen tried that on the NES and not only got sued into the ground, but made case law as well. The Federal court stated that Nintendo could regulate who develops on their closed platforms. How would you even distribute a hacked game that wasn't licensed by Nintendo? You'd get shut down immediately and sued, just like Tengen. This truly is a pathetic excuse for hacking.

I think the point he's trying to make is that the 3DS (and other Nintendo platforms) have a relatively high barrier of entry in terms of becoming an official certified developer, so for those without commercial ambitions who just enjoy tinkering with the hardware (and there are a lot of these people, perhaps more than you think!) the 3DS is completely cost-prohibitive.

I don't think he's advocating or excusing the sale of unlicensed software, just bemoaning how difficult Nintendo makes (or made, I hear things are changing on this front) for small/independent devs to operate on their own terms.

Jools, I think what he's trying to say is that going from idea to product on a closed platform such as the 3DS is cost prohibitive. And I would agree that technically that is true.

That being said, I don't think the answer is to crack the system. I think the answer is to take baby steps in order to become a licensed independent developer. What this means is developing software for an open platform like Android, publishing a few quality games, gain fame and income, and then publish to Nintendo platforms.

You can see this in the Music Industry as well. Take the band, "The Last Bison". They didn't wake up one day and hijack Republic Records to sell their album. They made quality music and gave a lot of it away on channels such as Youtube. They went and played at local joints and I'm guessing they made little from it. But now they've been signed to a national record label and I predict will sell a lot of albums as a result.

"That being said, I don't think the answer is to crack the system. I think the answer is to take baby steps in order to become a licensed independent developer. What this means is developing software for an open platform like Android, publishing a few quality games, gain fame and income, and then publish to Nintendo platforms."

This is all good advice, but Nintendo also require a lot of very specific things, including a secure non-residential office and a certain amount of liquid capital (and not a small amount for an indie dev, I might add!), and you're not guaranteed a license even if you meet all the criteria.

Case in point: Bob Sabiston, developer/publisher of the successful DSiWare app Inchworm animation and head of industry-acclaimed film studio Flat Black Films, was denied a license to develop for 3DS/Wii U for no specific reason, even though he has a solid reputation, meets/exceeds all the requirements and already has a successful app on the DSi Shop Channel.

If you have a concept that's a sure-fire fit for the 3DS and you're serious about turning your games into a full-time career then by all means, apply to become a licensed developer, but for everyone else it really isn't worth the hassle, I'd have to say.

"You can see this in the Music Industry as well. Take the band, "The Last Bison". They didn't wake up one day and hijack Republic Records to sell their album. They made quality music and gave a lot of it away on channels such as Youtube. They went and played at local joints and I'm guessing they made little from it. But now they've been signed to a national record label and I predict will sell a lot of albums as a result."

And what would be the equivalent to make and give away small first projects on the 3DS when you can't afford a devkit? Homebrew!

"Surely"? Have you actually researched this point at all, or is this just an assumption?

There are legitimate reasons for wanting to get around Nintendo's security systems, not least of which is bypassing the infuriating region lock. I'll happily hack my system if it lets me sidestep another of the ridiculous arbitrary restrictions they've placed on what I can/cannot play.

Thats correct, Nintendo have a very great catalogue...... in Japan, Many jewels of 3ds will never come to America, and thats for the Region Lock, i think this is one of the reasons that the hackers are trying to crack the 3ds, for me is the only reason that i want to hack my 3ds.

The problem with Dementium II in Europe was a mixture between piracy and lack of distribution. For example, the game, that had Spanish voices, wasn't distributed in Spain (I had to import from UK), so hardly it would sell here. But the game was released in a moment when European piracy was at his highest level (and Spain is a country with the highest levels in Europe), so maybe the publisher's decision of not distributing the game was because of piracy.

Sadly, it's expensive to legally develop for consoles, but we all know that the number of people that will use this exploit to develop is going to be very small (it's an excuse).

I hope Nintendo fixes the problem soon and we can keep getting your games.

the problem is that renegade kid only released dementium 2 in the us and northern europe all other countrys got trown away in the garbage can, i was fucking looking forward to buy the sequel yet renegade kid trew us in the dirt, luckely i imported it from the uk aswel, but those who didnt pirated it and i bet a load shit of people pirated that game, its renegades kid his own fault if he released the game on all countrys then people didnt had to pirate it.

Here is the question; if I buy a 3DS, why cant I do what I want to it? Why can I jailbreak and reverse-engineer my 3DS if I bought one? Remember the case of Sony Computer Entertainment America v. George Hotz? Why are handhelds and consoles by Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo so restrictive on what you can do to the system and the games? Thats why lately I personally am phasing support towards PC gaming, where developers like Valve and Bethesda encourage and support mods to their games after buying their game.

Sorry to say, but piracy is never going to go away, no matter how many laws and takedown notices made. It isnt draining trillions of dollars like its exaggerated to be. Look at Halo 4, a game leaked and pirated way before its release. Did that game lose alot of money like piracy implies? Nope, it became a mega blockbuster and made millions of dollars.

Maybe the industry should follow the way of Valve and see piracy as more of a service issue. Why do you think Pokemon games are pirated? Because of the silly release schedule where certain regions have to wait months before they get a game that honestly takes a week to translate and localize. Why do you think Street Fighter x Tekken was pirated? Because Capcom locked characters away as On-Disc DLC in the game and people didnt want to pay twice for a single game. Why do you think Ubisoft's PC games were pirated? Because UPlay was so horrendous by requiring a user to always be online alongside often broken registration methods, and pirated copies removed UPlay and made the games playable. Sure, there are some elements of pricing and not wanting to play, but alot of it is the bullcrap business methods companies use in order to screw over gamers. Piracy can be severly reduced by having developers avoid on-disc DLC or content locked away ingame, avoid online passes, avoid region-locking, avoid having the always having to be online to play, having worldwide launches on the same day, and encouraging/supporting community mods for games.

I dont claim to be an expert on this topic, but I hope my few thoughts on the subject can shed some light on how to reduce piracy and keep gamers happy at the same time.

The reason why you can't whatever the hell you want with a 3DS or whatever is because they own the software. These guys are messing with the software which voids warrent and is illegal. You agree to a fucking contract about it.

Nobody cares if you jailbreak or reverse-engineer your 3DS, it's what you plan on doing with that 3DS that is the problem. The number of people that would use it for mods or homebrew is somewhere around zero - the number of people who will pirate games with it? Too numerous to count.

And lol at the claims that things like on-disc DLC and DRM garbage are the reasons behind piracy. People were stealing games long before those practices became commonplace.

The unfortunate thing Nintendo has given hackers the perfect rallying cry in the form of region locking. A lot of comments on GAF are in support of cracking the 3DS in the name of making it region free.

No, for me other reason is the prices:A Nintendo game in the eshop here in Mexico is $20 dollars more expensive than the USA eshop (the salary is like 1/8 part of the USA), and people here in Mexico cant buy from USA eshop.

And the Wii U, $299 dollars in USA, and $500 dollars in Mexico (both basic versions), and whats do Nintendo for solve this stuation? NOTHING.

Im not justifing hacking, but demanding Nintendo to be fair, if them see that have more piracy in third world countries, why not have at least the same price that in "the first world" countries in consoles and videogames to try to avoid piracy?

To solve the problem of piracy is important the collaboration between the big companies(like Nintendo) and the buyers, and the best example of this is Valve, very great plataform, prices, policies and support in all countries

Agreed with all of this. I live in a "first world country" whose dollar is actually worth more than the USD (Australia) yet the RRP for both digital and retail games is 150% of the RRP in the US, for no reason other than the fact that people have been conditioned to pay high prices. It's the inverse of the "iOS effect", in a way--once people become accustomed to a certain price bracket they eventually stop questioning it.

The 3DS gives me the option of changing my region settings to the UK or an EU country, which lets me access the European store and buy games at European prices, as well as access any games that aren't released in Australia (and there are quite a lot of those, including highly-rated games like Shantae). Can you not do this on your Mexican 3DS?

I hear this isn't possible on Wii U--once you've selected your country during the setup process it cannot be changed, allegedly. I hope this isn't true.

Do you think Wii U (for example), is expensive in your country because of Nintendo? You've never heard about protectionism?I'm brazilian and a 3DS XL here is 500~600$, but its not Nintendo fault.The government is the "guilty", always fucking the consumer with taxes/importation taxes...

Nintendo is not interested in the Latin America Market, for that reason the nintendo consoles are distributed from local import companies, and that companies can put the price that them want( Latamel is the distributor for Mexico)

The gouvernment doesnt have much to do here IMHO, becouse in usa have taxes, mexico taxes, brazil taxes, and it doesnt have enough variation to determinate the high prices.

So the thing here is that Nintendo doesnt like Latin America from the business view, and thats the first reason of the high prices, many games that come just in english and poor support, and of course, this help to increase the piratery.

Microsoft is starting to take advantage of it, i read that Micro is making factories in Brazil, for produce the consoles in a better price for Latin America.

If Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft doesnt start to have more competitive prices in L.America, the new challanger: Android will dominate here soon with the help of Ouya and the chinesse cheap consoles,(don't subestimate the chinese consoles, becouse them start having very interesting hardware, JXD S7300 is the best example)

Enjoy your region-free system once no more games are developed on the system aside from big blockbuster titles. Region-lock is a lame excuse for piracy, the DS wasn't region-locked nor was the PSP yet they both suffered from piracy.

And besides, tell to yourself if it was region-lock that prevented people to fully enjoy games like Mother 3 or FF Type-0 outside of japan. I don't think so.

Why do people just assume that everyone is using the region lock as a smokescreen for advocating piracy?

I'm stuck with a PAL-region 3DS (an Aussie one, to be precise, which has its own unique drawbacks in terms of digital content that I won't go into) which means that I'm not only unable to play any of the Japanese games I've been reading about, but I can't even import North American games that take my fancy.

A substantial percentage of my DS library was imported from North America, in particular a bunch of niche RPGs from companies like XSEED, Atlus, etc that never bothered (and still don't bother) to secure a PAL release for most of their games, which meant that importing was the only option for me.

Now that the 3DS makes that impossible for me, the number of titles I might potentially by has decreased significantly, and for what reason? So Nintendo can correctly display age ratings, or whatever their PR line was? No, it's so they can micromanage every individual supply chain and wring every last drop of profit from cooperative retailers.

That's their prerogative and I don't begrudge them for it, but it is a massive inconvenience to me and a lot of other people, and if I have to hack my system just so I can play games, that's what I'll do.

And yet all I read is let's hack that m-f system, that's all it deserves for being region-locked.

I'm a PAL 3DS owner myself and it sometimes sucks but not because of region-lock but because they don't bother releasing some games here. I gods hope you did buy Zero Escape VLR and that you'll buy SMT Overclocked and Code of Princess once they'll hit their announced release. Let's hope they'll release Etrian Odyssey 4 here too since they announced it for the US recently. Just be patient.

If anything, region-lock gives them no more excuse not releasing games here or at least put them on the eshop. If they're stupid enough not to do so then I'll be the first to support hacking the system to enable region-free play, but I know this won't happen without going into piracy territory and that only hurts the small developers the most.

"And yet all I read is let's hack that m-f system, that's all it deserves for being region-locked."

Again, I don't advocate piracy, nor am I personally interested in it, but I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for Nintendo in regards to this point.

They knew piracy was a huge issue on DS, and they know that pirates often hide behind emotional/philosophical arguments in order to justify what they do, and yet they went and handed hackers a "legitimate" reason for focusing their efforts on cracking the system wide open.

I don't see how the benefits of region-locking could possibly outweigh the drawbacks, or why they decided to adopt it after decades of ignoring it (on handhelds, anyway). It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

"If anything, region-lock gives them no more excuse not releasing games here or at least put them on the eshop."

You'd think so, but things never seem to turn out this way, hence why the region lock is such a pain in the arse.

SMT Overclocked is a perfect example: the publisher Atlus licensed the game to is absolutely hopeless; they've delayed the game again and again and I'd be very surprised if it ever comes out. I could have imported the game eighteen months ago if it weren't for the region lock, but as it stands I may never get to play the game. (Extra irritating is the fact that Aussie PAL releases often contain the NA localisation anyway, since we don't have the EFIGS mandate that Europe has, so the delay isn't even justified in that respect.)

Like someone else said, they need to approach this as a service issue, not a retail chain management issue. The more inconveniences they create for the customer, the more willing they'll be to turn to methods like hacking the hardware. Drop the region lock, make it easier for devs to release their game digitally across all regions, etc and I guarantee the complaints will dissipate.

Nintendo most likely adopted region locking due to external pressure from retail sellers that wish to avoid cross importing. That is the sole reason why region lock exists. It adds no value at all to the consumer.

Video games is not a right! So stop treating it like one. A system like the 3DS was was announced during it's creation to be a region locked system. People knew this going in before they decided to purchase. You chose to buy a system that gave you a limit on what regions of games you could play. Please let know act like this is some kind of crime. Where Nintendo took away a feature from you similar to Sony. Live with your decision, and get a real job. So maybe you can afford to buy the games and systems. You say you would buy if the system was region free. Something I really doubt.

Personally, I hate the fact that systems are so closed off and locked down. Region locking is evil and means we can only support the people who are "big" enough to get their games brought over and the lack of user mods and homebrew is what makes console gaming inferior to PC (and why most 3rd party games I buy on PC rather then 360 and PS3).

On the other hand, the dark side of hacking is how it messes up games with progression. Go play Borderlands, Dungeon Defenders, or Kindom Under Fire Circle of Doom on 360. Go play MH Tri on Wii. Go play White Knight Chronicles on PS3. You'll see exactly what I mean. Even competitive games have their fair share of hackers that RUIN games, especially shooters. I hated playing Conduit 1's online, a month in and the game was full of people hacking and taking away the fun of the game.

To add to the hacking problem, you also have stuff like the Playstation Network Outages where butt hurt hackers took out their anger problems on everybody. For MMO fans who played WoW or other popular games, I'm sure you heard of accounts getting hacked and stolen so somebody on the other side of the world can make money by exploiting your character then selling the in game currencies to unethical players. How about people who played Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast or Borderlands 2 on 360 and got their save files corrupted after they poured hundreds if not thousands of hours into those games?

To top it off, you also have hackers exploiting systems and stealing games which hurts the gaming industry as a whole. Why do you think the Dreamcast died? It wasn't a bad system, it had a great line up, I would guess its the fact that it was so easy to get games illegally. PSP also shared the same problem, which is why Sony made the PSP Go, which fell flat of course and why support dropped for the system. Games have to sell in order to see future support and sequels, which is a problem both of those systems shared.

In the end, yes I don't want our systems region locked, yes I do want user mods and homebrew but no I'm not willing to risk that for those current problems I mentioned. The architecture for modding and playing imported games has to be there from the get go because if everything is done locally and we have those freedoms, the end result will be bad.

I can't believe so many people are trying to defend hacking the 3DS. It's not good. Why are people claiming iOS is a successful platform? Oh boy, developers can charge most of the time a maximum of $1 per game if they want people to buy it and not download it illegally. There are rules set in place for a reason. You try to get around the market because you're too cheap to pay, and you cause the whole economy to go to hell. Look at the US right now, lots of people have tried over the past decade to get around paying their fair share, and now the economy is in the crapper. Piracy on gaming systems is just a microcosm example of the same problem.

Leaving piracy aside, I have a question to make:Why are today gamers so selfish and impacient? There is a reason for region lock to exist, and some games takes longer to come overseas due to the fact that localization processes aren't always easy. Pokémon for an instance have tons of text that takes months to translate,and there is still a lot of culture references and names that needs to be changed to be adapted to the US/EU markets. About Region lock, developers and publishers need especific charts and feedback from each market. If a region-free game is released first in the States, most european or even aussie and asian fans will import the american version, thus affecting the japanese and the multilanguage versions, however if all versions are launched at the same times money can be wasted, as each part of the world needs different marketing approaches and development time will take longer. Besides, some markets are more demanding and releasing the game first in this grounds can be a very risky business.We still have the fact that most people involved in the monetary part of the game industry (investors, sales managers, publishers heads) aren't gamers and ignore fans feedback and support sometimes (they aren't familiar with this kind of response). XSEED for an instance almost didn't localizated The Last Story cause their external sales managment wasn't aware of operation rainfall.We all know that the game industry needs to change, there are other ways to the developers to insure their money, but there is too much external interest involved. Our feedback are surely important, but we can't go crazy and start offend developers because of their decisions, if something happens there is a reason for it to happen and (with exception in some cases) we need to respect.Sorry about my english, I live in Brazil and, yes, here things are worse on that matter.

The movies have tons of text and voice translation, and thats not an obstacle to realease movies in many countries at the same time. and for example Pokemon: the translation of the fans is more fast than Nintendo, although here in Mexico that game didn´t come in Spanish :/

Many movies don't release at the same time AT ALL. Even inside Europe there can be a couple of days/months delay between countries. And even then how can you even compare a 90+ minutes movie with a 50+ hours RPG in terms of translation work.

In the 50+ hours many of the text is repetitive (for example the hospital, the market, the battles)and i insist, the fans do very fast translation (weeks), than nintendo (months),(fans didnt have so many workers as Nintendo have)

And many games like Halo, Gears of War, Call of Duty (even with japanese audio dub), Little Big Planet have worldwide release, why?, becouse first did the translations prior the release, thats responsible and avoid months of wait for countries, and even waiting months, the game didnt come translated, Mexico is an example

Sorry, but you're wrong. I've imported a bunch of Gamecube, DS and Wii games, but only after being 99% sure that they would never come out in my market (aand they haven't). Shipping is pretty expensive, so I don't think that many people are ready to import every single game that comes out.

"If these hackers really want to mess with the guts of a 3DS, why not become legit developers for it and let the world enjoy their talents?"

Because this is something they enjoy doing and not something they wanna make a living doing? It's like the people over at NWR who say they never want to become official game "journalists" because it's just a hobby they really love but don't want to have as a career.

"If piracy gets bad on the 3DS, we will have no choice but to stop supporting the platform with new games."

Right, and go struggle creating games in an overcrowded app market or will you just stop developing games altogether and get a new career? Come on.

"Some say that piracy leads to more game sales, claiming that it enables players to try before they buy. Bullshit."

It might not lead to more sales but it will definitely lead to more hardware sales and Nintendo benefits from that, though they'll never admit it. Anyways, I firmly believe people who pirate games aren't gonna buy them in the first place, so it's rarely ever a lost sale. Unless they did use it as a demo of sorts and the game turned out to be shit and it completely turned them off. I'm not saying piracy doesn't affect sales but it's definitely overblown. People see how many times a file has been downloaded at X bittorrent site and act as if thats a 1:1 loss of a sale. As if the person who pirated the copy would have definitely payed a full $40 to $60 for the game and that's just not realistic.

Anyways, I'm glad hacking is coming along. Hackers unlock the full potential of a system and remove bullshit restrictions like region locking and media types the system can play. If publishers dont wanna localize a title, its a great way for the fans to take things into their own hands and translate a game and we're gonna need that more than ever in the future with dead western portable game support, fewer localization and region locking.

I'll do what it takes to get my hands on games that I want. Importing a a Japanese 3DS, importing a rare Japanese games at ridiculous prices and learning Japanese just isn't feasible for me. So hacking my 3DS, downloading a rom and patching it is the only way for me to go. If people wanna tell me "too bad"learn Japanese or don't play the game", then fuck it, too bad if it enables piracy. I wanna play the games I want and if it leads to piracy too bad. It might sound selfish but I don't care just like they don't care about me playing the games I want and the piracy excuse is overblown.

If your game didn't sell it was either shit, didn't have mass appeal or a large marketing campaing. Not because of piracy. It really is as simple as that. Hell, people who play niche games are some of the more loyal people out there and actually purchase there games. Used games sales has and always will affect game sales more than piracy every will.

Anyone saying hacking is ok, for whatever reason, is a f****** hypocrite. If you're old enough to clean your diapers, why don't you tell your bosses to cut 5% of your income? Or maybe just dismiss 2% of your costumers for no reason. I guess it's no big deal, since it's "such a small loss" anyway. You guys won't even notice... Oh, wait! Maybe your opinion conveniently changes when we're talking about your own pockets.

GTFO of here with your swiss cheese logic ya damn rat. Hackers are the primary reason why software is as sophisticated as its become and the only reason why it continues to evolve and make our lives easier. Hackers are problem solvers who ultimately make everyone's lives just a little bit easier by solving those problems. The main problem with the 3DS is the region lock, which is quite offensive by the way, and the hackers are out to solve that problem. If some scumbag uses their solution for the sake of piracy it is not the fault of the hackers who cracked the console's security. You can't blame them for something they didn't do. you have to blame the guy who outright used their work to enable piracy.

@MosbacherOh, poor hackers! They don't pull the trigger; they just help to load the gun. As i said, hypocrite. The only thing full of holes is your brain. Take care, because it may be the Creutzfeldt-Jakob's.

The "it's such a small loss" mentality is actually quite rampant in the big-box retail world. Guy walks out of the store with some DVDs? Eh, no, don't go after him or anything, it's no big loss compared to the comp we'd have to pay if you got hurt or the lawsuit we'd have if he got hurt. Our insurance will pay for the movies. This adds up to thousands of dollars per yer. It's infuriating!

Jools I bought Mutant Mudds on the 3DS and the way you reward me is by threatening to not release anymore games for the system if it gets cracked? I think I might not support your company if you follow through with this. Its disingenuous, hateful. and its cutting off your nose to spite your face. Don't do this.

I'm no hacker, but this is a really stupid stance, espicially for a dev who's already going to iOS. Fuck you, give me my 3ds money back. Mutant MUDds was ok, but its flat out insulting for you to blast "hackers" when you sold out to a system that allows piracy, while moaning about the possibility on a secure system.

From TC:"He adds that he has no interest in allowing others to use the hack to load pirated software."

In circumventing the region locking of 3DS, I will have greater motivation to buy 3DS. My two biggest deal breaking problems with the 3DS so far are the battery life and region locking. I'm very excited to support eShop games on 3DS, as I have with WiiWare and DSiWare. I'm especially looking forward to finally playing games like Mutant Mudds, Fractured Soul, Mighty Switch Force!, and NightSky. In any 3DS discussion, I am diligent in mentioning such titles. Also, with retail stuff, I even own BIT.TRIP SAGA already.

In regards to Try-before-buy,I have tried several DS games and later bought them. Including (but not limited to):Etrian Odyssey, Mega Man Battle Network 5, Mega Man Zero Collection, Ghost Trick, Custom Robo, Dragon Quest/Monsters, Final Fantasy, KORG DS-10, Lufia, Monster Rancher, N+, among others.The funny thing is that most of these remain on my SD card, while the actual game box remains unopened. Now I'm not saying everyone is like this, but with my friends I can think of more than one example who are either, in another country and have to wait, or simply have to save up money, who pirate a game first but buy it later.

Piracy is invaluable for any creative medium. Piracy, to me, carries a positive connotation rather than the common negative one.In speaking against piracy, usually a person isn't seeing the entire scope of effects, but rather only the first few dominoes that fall. Two example scenarios with different end results:1) Person doesn't own the game. Can't pirate it or demo it to even try it. This person does not experience the game at all, and so ignores it and then goes on to play other games instead, which are spread around instead, as in the next scenario.2) Person does't own the game. Can pirate it, plays it a bunch. Tells all his friends, off and on line, about how he's playing this new game and how fun it is. Personal recommendation is much more influential than a commercial or a review. Out of all those friends, some may even end up trying the game out, and in turn they tell all their friends, and lo - the word of mouth free-marketing domino effect. 10 people hearing about a game is superior to 1 person ignoring a game.

Supporting small developers is important. For a long time I've done my best to be aware of the scene to help promote these great games to people who otherwise don't take the time to wade so deep into the scene. While it is unfortunate that there are some who wholly and maliciously pirate things, I think there are an equal or greater amount of good people who instead support, contribute, and promote.

Also, in response to a previous comment, I'm very disappointed to hear about Bob Sabiston.

very disappointing and hateful viewpiracy has been a disaster on the PC, yet steam somehow prevails and has the craziest deals ever for games as well as insanely good support, how's THAT possible then?blaming piracy is the lowest form of defence as a developer, i've lost all respectif there's something you hate, best ignore it and focus on what you want to do, life lesson

Must be glad that it's yellow8 and co who did it as they'd rather not release it than to enable piracy it seems.I for one hope that piracy stays away from the 3DS. It's more amusing this way when devs struggle to find an excuse for their games flopping (like when a game sucks).As for the whole region locking. It sure is a lame excuse to hack the system but a lame excuse enforced by publishers who CAN but do not release their games without the lock (region A was it?).

It's funny because you still think that your game Renegade Kid is actually a game... so let me tell you that you release a game that is exactly the same game but with a different point.

It's not piracy the problem, the problem it's that (i'm also a developper but with open mind)... piracy always contribute to more selling games... in the past the video games industry was not really accessible and only few games was sealed... today you say that piracy make problem when is not... let's take example of a total scripted game called COD... you can easily download this games everywhere but due to the free commercial communication... the game was sealed per million... the video games industry beats the cinema so how you can tell that piracy make problem...

Like Tim said

Tim Cushing from TechDirt argues that piracy isn't only good for the pirates, it's also good for the developers: "If your software is either good enough or ubiquitous enough (and in rare cases, both), early experience with pirated software can lead to paying customers for life."

Bill Gates, who once said, "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

It's like going to Africa (where people need water, school, etc) and ask them to pay for book that they doesn't have the possibilities to pay or refuse to share to them your books, music, etc... it's like insulting them of piracy... the main problem is that have more poor people around the world than rich, people pay with credit or sacrifice all the money they have... next month they can't pay for a game at all... if you calcul that a game 3DS can cost more than 40euros... it's a lot of money... so 3x games like already cost 120euros.. so even have piracy...you should know that 90% of the people who use piracy will not think about buying the games anyways even without piracy (because most of the games are not interesting at all !!!)...like i said... the life cost... so the most important is not about buying a game but buying food and co... people like you say the same about the DVD, CD, Printer... Printer will kill the Book industry (not at all) and actually the numeric save many part and communicate about existant book... DVD writer will kill dvd movie, actually it bring more buyer of DVD, CD writer will kill music cd sales... actually we have more know artist, more share and more sales...(also look the benefit of intern, youtube = piracy too no ?) you only think about yourself and your point but you should think global, why the piracy as always be good for the industry... it was always good (free communication, sharing, people don't know artist can know them now and also communicate about them, bring more buyer, etc..) ... the major only think about having more money, developper/editor the same... so they should calm down, stop and understand what's going on... we talk about sharing numeric stuff... it's not material at all... it's not helping health or anything that we need for life... so why always this bullshit about piracy make problem... and why use this word ? you should use share... sharing experience, sharing information, sharing culture... if the people from the past will think like you... you will never understand any language if people only pay for that etc... so stop with your big head point... go make another crappy game that use the same algo than many other game and repeat the same lvl... for me this is not video games at all... it's more stolen idea from other and make profit when people share this free and open source...

I did some big stuff for pc games by releasing free alternatif driver, free patch to make the game running good on every computer... it's not piracy the problem, the problem is your point... the point that you can turn the page and go away... live with that and take the advantage...

People of the industry are such so egocentric... think global damm think global...

Piracy make jobs !! Piracy make everythings possible... you imagin that people who didn't have the possibilities to use Piracy will not have experience of computing and co... so will not have job and probably will leave in the street... etc... so please stop with this bad point about piracy when you don't know what is about.

Hey, Jools, I love ya. But being able to do a tons more with my systems due to homebrew is a lot more important to me than your games (or any one developer's games for that matter). You remember the Wii in 2009, or 2011? Game droughts were very frequent on the system, but it was still my favorite console. Why? Because homebrewers turned the system into a great little thing to have by your TV, something Nintendo wasn't doing in those years. That's not changing because of your misplaced fear in homebrew. You know the only reason the PSP lived outside Japan? Homebrew. Everyone I know with one has custom firmware on it. My point is, homebrew greatly increases the value of a system. It did for the DS, it did for the PSP, it did for the Wii, and now it will for the 3DS. It accomplishes what the first parties refuse to do. The day that console manufacturers completely stamp out homebrew is the day I switch to PC exclusively (even though I prefer the ease of use and form factor of consoles).

"homebrew is a lot more important to me than your games (or any one developer's games for that matter)."

Homebrew is complicated but an amazing thing, but to go so far as saying what you just said is going pretty far though. Colors on the DSi and 3DS started as homebrew but are now legally making the software on a Nintendo platform. Now, I don't think you would just stop supporting them because of something said if they were to start going down a spiraled slope.You could say homebrew does help in some ways though, for the few that respect the platform and are willing to try and make unique experiences. Many developers start out similarly, with something small and they all want to be there making something on PCs and/or consoles, it's their passion and dream.

While it seems I'm taking a sympathetic stance, it doesn't change the facts that many have started small and will always require money to sustain themselves to keep making more games for one or more platform, indie or not. There is a good and bad side to the hacking scene, Jools is just taking a precautionary stance on what could happen in the foreseeable future.

Jools, do not forget that hacking the console will help transfer your games on the languages ​​in which they are not officially come out. it greatly increases the reach of your fans. do not rule out that many of them have buy the your original games.

some examples of translationspl: http://www.swiat-cierpy.ugu.pl/ru: http://owls-group.org.ru/I also saw the arabic and jap translations of your games.

The Nintendo 3DS system has MANY capabilities that are going to waste because of Nintendo's inaction or legal/corporate red tape.

- Absolutely ZERO GBA titles on the Virtual Console shop, when these titles are still VERY relevant.

- Obviously capable of emulating N64 (there's been an emulator in development for PSP since 2011), but we've seen nothing but one or two remakes.

- ZERO support for internet Video / Audio objects, when this makes the MOST sense on a portable Wi-Fi device.

--- Even more so that YouTube hosts _3D Videos_ and we've seen nothing to support it yet.--- Let that sink in for a moment.

- Additionally, all the region-locked arguments above this comment.

For those of you white-knighting against "piracy":

- You agree that downloading a copy of "Super Mario Bros." for the NES constitutes "piracy" because Nintendo still owns the copyright.- Therefore, NEVER play Super Mario Crossover, mari0, OR ANYTHING ELSE CONSTRUCTED USING ALL THE ASSETS OF THE ORIGINAL GAME.- If you expect everyone else to be such purists, then you should very well follow the same demands.

No matter what the motive behind hacking the system is, it is still illegal. You can say all you want about how it will benefit 3DS owners, but it still doesn't get past the fact that it will ruin small developers. Plus, why is region-locking so important anyway? I believe the only reason why Nintendo enforced it was only because certain games do not sell as well in other regions in the world, and if it wasn't in effect, then it would only lead to piracy which also affects small developers. If I had to sum this whole scenario in one word, it would be "stealing." Plus, once you sign the user agreement, you promise to follow the set rules applied to it, so it can also be considered lying. I may not know much about this topic in general, but I still have the decency to know that this is wrong!

It's not illegal to modify your own system. Look up the legal history of static control, same concept here. Someone mentioned Tengen earlier, but that was because of the copyrighted code on the NES lockout chip, not because of custom hardware in general. What I'm saying is that it would not have been illegal if Tengen simply circumvented the lockout chip, it was illegal for them to copy the code on it.

as a ds owner and flashcard user i can confirm i've bought a number of titles having first played "pirated" versions of them sometimes on the ds and sometimes on emulators made by hacking the ds to reverse engineer its code and often with a pirated nintendo bootrom but the lack of a flashcard for the 3ds has resulted in me only buying 3 non first party 3ds titles and all 3 of those had playable demos available.

i suppose its also worth noting that the hackers themselves have said that the hack they are using is very easy for nintendo to block which kind of makes any dumb rubbish about quitting the platform appear even more stupid, especially when you are going to ios a platform renowned for its free culture, poor profits on all but the best titles and rampant piracy.

oh and i can pirate games on my pc, xbox 360, wii and ps3 and yet i own over 300 xbox 360 games and around 180 for the wii, i even own a few ps3 games that i bought before sony gave me the choice of keeping a feature i'd paid for and pirating their software or allow them to steal that feature in exchange for being able to continue to throw my money at them, for my pc i use steam (and gog) like most other people.

Just a little correction: Nintendo DOES NOT have the ability to brick your 3DS system. They can only update firmware to block flashcarts from working. But that doesn't matter since Nintendo takes ages to put out their updates and the active flashcarts get updated hours later to by-pass it.

1- The region lock. No, I will NOT buy a second 3DS just to play japanese games that will never be released here. And I do play a lot of them.

2- Undubbed version of games. Until game companies stop butchering their RPGs with horrible, horrible voice acting instead of giving us at the very least the choice of which áudio track we wish to listen to, Ill keep undubbing my legally bought games, thank you very much (and in these cases I buy the imported version, even though it costs more, just to avoid voting with my wallet towards the horrible dub).

3- Homebrew. I bought this wonderful machine. Can you really blame me for wanting more out of it? With the potential current handhelds have right now, homebrew can really be taken to the next level, greatly expanding the native functions of these machines, juts like how we do with pretty much every other piece of hardware we buy, like computers or our smartphones.

But if you wanna stop releasing games for 3DS, be my guest. You can always release games on those plataforms that have no piracy, like... uhm... lemme think... Well, I guess theres the Vita, with its huge and ever increasing userbase.

Piracy is always about convenience. If piracy becomes an easier way to download and play a game on the 3ds, certainly many people will turn to it. Nintendo has unfortunately set up a couple of barriers that halter convenience and therefore promote piracy when it becomes available. One of these is the region locking of the 3ds devices. Another is the binding of 3ds purchases to a single 3ds and not some sort of account. What happens in the future when your 3ds breaks and Nintendo no longer supports the 3ds? You've lost all of your digital purchases.

Avoiding piracy is idiotic. You can't avoid it. You may as well quit being a game developer if you're scared of pirates. As long as you create a great game and sell it for a reasonable price, you will make a large profit from it, piracy or no piracy. If you're not confident enough that your game is good enough to withstand piracy then GTFO of the game developer business. We don't need wimpy snobs like you who only care about making more and more money. You should be focused on making a superb game, not on how much more or less profit your game maybe probably would have made had no one pirated it.

You can't honestly expect to make games and not have to worry about piracy. I am sorry but if thats the case you are sorely mistaken. It will always be a issue no matter what you release it on. Nearly every console is hacked. PS3, 360, Wii, Wii U (To a degree), DS, DSi (To a degree), 3DS (To a degree), PC, Mobile, etc. Doesn't matter what you put it on it will remain an issue. So if your really concerned about that on the 3DS then you are in the wrong industry because there is no console or platform you could ever release a game on and not expect it to be pirated.

If you stop supporting the 3DS, I'll stop supporting Renegade Kid. I bought 5 of your games but it doesn't look like I'll be buying any of your future titles. I'd rather support developers that aren't planning on abandoning the ultra-popular 3DS. It's your loss.

I may buy actually buy 3DS if a successful hack is released. Thus I may buy your 3DS games in that case. I won't support a region locked handheld unless it was the second coming of christ, which the 3DS is in no danger of becoming thus far.

Then there's the whole mess of the 3DS digital store. Some full games available, but not all. Prices are insane. But most importantly, licenses are tied to hardware instead of to a freely roaming account. Unacceptable. Yet having all games available without dragging around carts is important to me. I used a flash cart for the DS for this purpose, I also bought something like 30 DS games, even importing a few. I just got a Vita a few weeks ago, and already have well over 10 games, all bought\rented digitally. 3DS simply isn't competitive in this venue, but a hack allowing backups of retail games would make it so, and ideally force Nintendo into actually competing(see Steam succeeding in the face of easily done piracy with a customer base of savvy PC users).

There's nothing but anecdotal evidence of course, but you're probably wrong about nearly all pirates not buying any games. Small devs like RK in particular are even more likely to have someone turn around and say "I should support them" than say the next NSMB or CoD rehash. It may also act as free PR, especially when you make quality games as I believe you do. What if Mutant Mudds was heavily pirated, but got a lot of buzz so it got onto Steam as a result? Surely that would at least not be the worst thing in the world? Finally it may get a significantly higher amount of people to buy a 3DS, who, yes, are planning to pirate a lot of games, but may also buy a couple. Without the ability to do so, a 3DS may not have even been on their radar, leaving them content with their iPod or whatever instead of 40£ games.

People are stupid. Yes, I'll admit that I've used emulators and downloaded old games to play on them more than once, but I will not ever pirate a game that is still fresh. Jools and crew deserve to make money on their games, as does others. Even when I use emulators for older games, I still try to get the older systems and games to play them as time goes on, because I do prefer to collect and own them. Granted, when I do finally get these games, it's from a third party seller, as they're no longer sold new, so developers don't make a cent on them. Most of those developers are long gone.

Jools, you're in the right here. People don't have the right to steal your work. Sadly, people have grown to be very entitled and feel that they deserve everything handed to them. It's a shame that we don't reward great games with money but choose to steal them instead. With this generation, we've seen many developers go under because they couldn't stay financially above water. We shouldn't be taking the bread off of their kitchen table because we're too damn cheap.

I hope that they stop. Cause frankly, I have enjoyed every game on 3DS and DS that you guys have put out. even though Mutant Mudds put my platforming skills to the test, i love it all the same. If this passes over, you should consider Moon 2 for the 3DS. Because I know that moon was out standing, and you could be the first real first person shooter on the 3DS!!

Hello Jools.I was wondering,I have a group of friends who would like to port Dementium: The Ward, as a homebrew game to the PSP.as far as i know, i need your permission, but if it cant happen due to nintendo, i will trash the whole idea and forget about it.

This guy is dumb. Everything can be hacked. Name on electronic device that hasn't. Anyway, no one will really care if this loser stops making games, no one ever liked the shitty content this bitch made anyway.

of course. nobody cares anymore. and by nobody you mean EVERYBODY. have you even PLAYED the games this guy made? To me and a few other people there GOLDEN games, they deserved to have those gold cases like the original NES classics did!

I can't speak for anyone else, but personally I always made an effort to obtain legal copies of any game I played on the R4 and enjoyed, and indeed purchased many games that I perhaps wouldn't have if I hadn't played it first (Infinite Space springs to mind as a front-runner).

The gap between US and European release often meant a gap of several months between a playable release and an official release, however. This was ample time for a culture of piracy to thrive in Europe.

But the R4 just made the DS an all round nicer system. The ability to store large number of games on a single standard SD card, the flexbility of being able to back up my saves, the sudden freedom from needing to carry more than one expensive, eminently losable cart.

Personally, I'd say that a DS without an R4 feels like a half-finished console.

the real reason why dementium 2 got pirated is because it only had a release in the us and northern europe, all other countrys got trown away in the garbage can, and so people just pirated the game because renegade kid didnt release the damn sequel in our countrys, i was lucky that the uk lays verry close to my country so i ported it from there.

Asking "If these hackers really want to mess with the guts of a 3DS, why not become legit developers for it and let the world enjoy their talents?" is actually pretty dumb. Don't you remember Colors! for the ds? This was a homebrew that started out solely by the fact that homebrew was available. If the ds had never been pirated, we would not be enjoying colors! 3DS on our 3DS' now, neither on our android smartphones or iOS devices. You need money to become legit developers, and a good quantity of money.

Piracy has always been an exaggerated issue that has more to do with poor regional support where games are grossly overpriced in certain countries or where certain regions simply can't afford them.

In the end, they never would have bought your game to begin with. I never would have bought my PSP in the first place is homebrew wasn't possible. Did homebrew stop be from getting a shelf full of over 30 games? No, but it got me to buy the system. As for the 3DS? I don't own one and I don't plan to unless I also get homebrew on it.

Take a look at what Valve has done with Russia. If they can have success on the PC in Russia, then you have no excuse. These closed off ecosystems are on their way out and I full support people who want to hack and do whatever they want with their systems.